Off to a good start!

After my excitement about having 94 followers yesterday, there was a mysterious disappearance of 1 follower leaving me with 93. I wonder why? Hope I have not bored or offended anyone!

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Yesterday I had my first quilting lesson with my amazing Domestic Goddess teacher Lucinda and I finished my first block. I decided on a using three different blocks throughout the quilt, 2 different star patterns and one plain block to showcase the cute animal Noah's Arc print fabric I chose.

Here's the finished block that I worked on yesterday.

I think that the colors look a bit Christmasy, however the other two fabrics that are not used on this block are the ones that are really cute (with the Noah's Arc prints) and they really bring these colors together in a nice way. I don't think the final product will look like it's meant for holiday time.

Yesterday was honestly the first time I ever used a sewing machine in my entire life, but I thought it went really well. At first I was super hesitant, but as the lesson went on, I gained confidence and I was proud of the outcome. Lucinda is a fantastic teacher because her teaching style really resulted in me doing my own work. She showed me how, but then stood back and made sure that I could then do the steps independently. When I was working with her, I was really thinking about my post from yesterday and how some teachers (myself definitely included) do too much for their students which results in the students not truly having mastery over the task/material or whatever it is. Lucinda was an excellent model of what teachers should do. I feel like I could make another block with even less help next time, which is exactly my goal---to gain independence with these sewing/quilting skills.

I am having my next lesson on Friday of next week and I can't wait. The one problem I did run into was using the fabric cutting tool because it was meant for a right handed person. Luckily the blade was able to be switched to the other side, so I could use it without trouble. I rarely run into issues that prevent me from using certain tools as a left handed person and typically I don't need to use items, like scissors, specifically for lefties, but in this case I really did. Lucinda gave me a list of some of the items I need to purchase so that I can do my own cutting from now on. That way, when I am paying for her time, it is just for sewing and not for the part that I could prepare before my arrival.

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Tonight a few of my teacher girlfriends are coming over to watch The Bachelor with me. My husband invested in a lot of fancy electronic toys that allow us to record shows from his parent's house in Cali and then watch them in Germany either on our computers or on our TV. My husband is awesome. What would I do in Germany without my trashy American TV show??

I heart Tivo, Slingbox, and Slingcatcher big time!!

A nice pitcher of Sangria is chilling as I type this. I love having the girls over and we are already hooked on the show despite our huge disappointment in some of Jake's selections. I really thought that overall it was a pretty lame bunch considering what a nice guy he seems to be. But as I mentioned to one of my friends...in this economy, surely not as many people are willing to give up their jobs to go on a reality show when it's likely that they won't find love and they will be back home and jobless within a few weeks....That sounds so cynical, but I remember a few seasons back, there was a teacher who left her job and then got sent home after two weeks or so...

Hope everyone has a great Friday.

Still in the works....

I am still trying to create a new blog design, but I have lots of reservations about actually installing it on this blog. It looks pretty good on the test blog, but when I cut and pasted the html code to this blog and just previewed it, some things were not looking right. Since I did not design what I currently have, I would have no way of reverting back to it once I start making changes., so I am not feeling ready to commit to that quite yet!

So for now....you can see my new blog design here...and hopefully someday I will get brave enough to move it over and work out all the kinks.

I really wanted to design a custom header and since I don't have any cool programs, I just used Microsoft Word and then printed the image, scanned it, and uploaded it to my computer. The image came out a little grainy, but it's a start. I think it came out cute. I really want my blog to reflect my personality so I am having a lot of fun making tweaks here and there, so you can see a little bit more of my personality in the changes.

I promise to post about something more interesting tomorrow!

Hooray!

Notice anything super exciting?

I figured out how to add a super cute font for my post titles and the date!! Woot Woot! I played around a bit on my "test blog" and once I was successful, I decided to be daring and change my real blog. I tried out two different fonts and decided that I liked this one better because the first was too thin and not bold enough to give the titles the true pizzazz they deserve. I was so intimidated by the tutorial yesterday, but I actually pulled it off.

Interested in giving it a try? Here is the tutorial I used.

Now that I have mastered super cute fonts, I really want to figure out how to make a cute collage-ish header that incorporates different elements from the everything-to-do-with-teaching scrapbook kit I downloaded from Aja Abney. I am thinking that I will need one of those fancy design programs and I know that some are free, but I haven't found one yet that works with a Mac. Any ideas? I don't want to buy one yet because I want to investigate a little bit and maybe just try my hand at it before I spend money. I just want to be able to play around with the design and make the header lots more fun and exciting.

This is so addicting! Check out the custom signature I made too!

I would also like to mention my excitement at now having 90 followers! That's only 10 lovely bloggies away from the big 1-0-0! Never in a gazillion years did I imagine when I started blogging that I would have that many people interested in what I have to say. It's funny, at this point I can't even remember what life was like before blogging! I enjoy it so much and live life with posting on my mind! I always look forward to sharing something about my day and different tidbits about teaching. I also really look forward to seeing what my bloggy buddies have been up to and I don't know what I would do without this great format for connecting with so many different, amazingy wonderful and fantabulous people.

Seriously...I'm in AWE

Today I became slightly obsessed with the notion of learning how to do my own blog design. It seems like such an amazingly cool thing to know how to do that I thought I would give it a stab. Some very nice bloggers out there actually took the time to write and post detailed descripions/instructions for how to do things like making custom signatures, inserting a custom background, and adding some graphics.

Thanks to the help of this site, this site, and this site (where I found out about those other two sites), I was able to learn some great stuff. I decided that rather than mess around with the beautiful template on this blog that was designed by Leslie (who by the way is a very cool teacher/blog designer on the side who does fantastic work that I could never in a million years live up to, but I still want to try...), I would create a new blog just for messin' around. That way, I can try some things and have a place designated just for learning until I actually get the hang of it enough to really change my design....

So, I created a new blog which you can find here. Take a look and let me know what you think of the design elements that are on there so far! I have to say, it was completely, utterly, and seriously addicing to play around with this stuff today! I can see why people get so into it! It took me such a long time to figure out the few elements that are there...hence the title of today's post....I'm in AWE of those who have the mad skills to do awesome blog designing!

My first quilt!

My grandmother makes beautiful quilts. She made me one when I was in high school and then she made another one for my husband and me when we got married. She enters her quilts in competitions and her work is beautiful.

I regret never asking her to teach me when she lived close to me. I was so young then, it never occurred to me. She moved to Florida when I was in second grade, so although I got to appreciate the things she made for me, I never got to chance to learn from her.

Now, I see the meaning in her work and I want to learn.

Luckily, I have Lucinda.

She is one of the women I met in the International Women's Group here in Germany and she is also an extremely talented quilter. Each of the beds in her apartment is covered with a unique quilt and her creations decorate her walls as well. I am in awe! I was thrilled when she told me that she gives lessons--even to super beginners who know nothing about quilting (or sewing for that matter!)

Before I went home to the US, Lucinda taught me a little bit about selecting quilting fabric and showed me some different designs/patterns. The fabric in Germany is quite expensive, so she recommended buying it while I was in the states.

My mom and I went to JoAnn fabrics, but for an amateur, it was really overwhelming because there is so much stuff. I looked at a lot of fabrics, but did not find anything that really jumped out. I am going to make a baby quilt, but I don't actually have a baby, or even a baby on the way, so I didn't really have any particular inspiration or theme in mind. I was on the lookout for a print with zoo or farm animals because I figured that was gender neutral enough while still being really cute.

JoAnn's turned out to be a flop.

I recalled the recommendation of a family friend, who said that smaller quilt shops are far superior. My mom and I looked up the ones she recommended and set out to find the perfect fabric. Since it takes a long time to make a quilt, Lucinda said it is very important to be in love with your chosen fabric because you end up looking at it a lot!

We found a little quilt shop tucked away in Bethel, CT and the owner was really helpful. Aren't small businesses great? The fabric was a little more expensive than at JoAnn's, but I knew the quality and selection would be better.

With Lucinda's coaching in mind, I searched through rows and rows, bolt after bolt to find my fabric.

I am so happy with what I found and I think that despite my newbie status as a quilter, that I did a pretty good job selecting coordinating prints. Lucinda said to pick one "main" fabric that I really love and then choose 4 or 5 other fabrics that coordinate. The other fabrics should have very small prints.

This is what I came up with.

 

 Even though this color scheme is not super girly, per se, I think the a Noah's Arc theme is really cute for either a girl or a boy. I love this one as the main fabric.

The coordinating prints:

 

 

 

 

smaller "coordinating" version of the main print. I love that it goes, but that it is smaller which follows the rules :0)

 

 doesn't this one look like waves? Perfect match for the Noah's Arc theme...this one will be for the back of the quilt.

close up of some of the cute animals

 

**those came out pretty dark, but the flash was making big bright spots so no flash was the better option**

I am really excited to get started and I wonder how long it will take to finish?! I think the most exciting part about making this is that I feel like I am doing it for my grandma and I can't wait to show her my handiwork!

Are you crafty?

Do you sew?

What is your favorite crafty project or something that you are dying to learn how to do?